Niccolo Machiavelli Quotes

He [Henry Clay] is certainly the basest, meanest scoundrel that ever disgraces the image of God—nothing too mean or low for him to condescend to.

He is only a filthy-brained child, conceived in ruthlessness and dedicated to the proposition that Judas Iscariot was a piker.

Sir, he [Bolingbroke] was a scoundrel and a coward: a scoundrel for charging a blunderbuss against religion and morality; a coward, because he had not resolution to fire it off himself, but left half a crown to a beggarly Scotsman to draw the trigger at his death.

To plunder, to lie, to show your ass, are the three essentials for climbing high.

Knavery seems to be so much the striking feature of its [America's] inhabitants that it may not in the end be an evil that they become aliens to this Kingdom.

Hypocrisy is a fearful evil, and every thing which has a tendency to produce it should be avoided.

The only way to survive among the evil and corrupt is to be even more wicked and more corrupt than they are!

Keep your hands clean and pure from the infamous vice of corruption, a vice so infamous that it degrades even the other vices that may accompany it.

It is not possible to found a lasting power upon injustice, perjury, and treachery.

Betrayal is common for men with no conscience.

A good politician is quite as unthinkable as an honest burglar.

I am a grafter.

In my opinion it is less shameful for a king to be overcome by force of arms than by bribery.

There is no act of treachery or meanness of which a political party is not capable; for in politics there is no honour.

To vice, innocence must always seem only a superior kind of chicanery.

I have never known a more vulgar expression of betrayal and deceit.

Evil always turns up in this world through some genius or other.

Do not be very upright in your dealings for you would see by going to the forest that straight trees are cut down while crooked ones are left standing.

His lack of education is more than compensated for by his keenly developed moral bankruptcy.

Though the bribe be small, yet the fault is great.

Our representatives are betrayers of the people.

… they seem to be such as would not swear, whore, nor be drunk, but they would lie, cozen and deceive.

Even though the treason be approved, the traitor is always abhorred.

Meese was a sleaze.

Having watched the form of our traitors for a number of years, I cannot think that espionage can be recommended as a technique for building an impressive civilization. It's a lout's game.